It Makes Cents, If Not Sense

One long spring ago, he led a little Southland hockey team on a thrilling ride reaching far beyond the rink, bonding a diverse community with courage and passion.

But Ron Wilson’s greatest impact here will be felt during the next two weeks.

When he is standing behind the bench of the Washington Capitals during the Stanley Cup finals.

Reminding Southland sports fans of what we have become.

Helpless.

On a landscape where giant corporations have swallowed most of the sports teams like giant discount stores once swallowed five-and-dimes, we have become frustrated in Aisle 5.

We have questions, but nobody is around to answer them. We have a complaint, but there is nobody to listen.

The embarrassment is not that Disney could simply fire former Mighty Duck coach Wilson last May because he didn’t fit their corporate mold.

The embarrassment is that Disney could so easily get away with it.

As easily as Disney has also gotten away with refusing to spend big money to give their hearty Angels some help.

As easily as Fox has gotten away with doing anything it wants to the Dodgers.

As easily as Jerry Buss, who may see corporate raiders in the distance, can get away with denying Jerry West his deserved raise and allowing him to leave the Lakers.

With our teams increasingly falling under the control of numbers crunchers, we are increasingly being treated like numbers.

And while the dissatisfied message from fans is one thing, the message from numbers is quite another.

Television rights fees are up. Merchandising profits are up. Attendance is up.

You want to keep buying tickets and shirts and enjoying your favorite sport, but you also want your favorite team to care as much about winning as you do?

Forget it. These days, with the most popular teams in this town, you can’t have it both ways.

Like any good discount giant, once many of our teams have you inside, they figure the transaction is complete.

You don’t like the new store configuration, the absence of clerks to explain the different brands of gas grills, the missing price tags on the blankets?

Fine. Then leave. The corporation that owns the store understands that enough people love them, need them and will endure all sorts of abuse just to taste their riches.

And if some day, fans finally grow so sick of the shenanigans that they purposely stay away and the places lose money?

Fine. Then the store will simply move. Many other cities would love to have one.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the story of Ron Wilson.

Because of him, it will be difficult for many of us to follow the Stanley Cup finals without the hair dancing on our arms.

Every time we see him, we will think, he should still be here, Disney never should have canned him, this good coach was ours.

None of which will matter to Disney, whoever they are.

Here’s what matters to Disney:

Last year, an 85-point playoff team with Wilson drew an average of 16,972 fans to the Arrowhead Pond.

This year, a 65-point pitiful team drew 17,068.

That’s right. By firing the best coach in hockey, which may have helped lead to an extended holdout by top young player Paul Kariya, the Ducks actually increased attendance.

For weeks after Wilson was fired, you ripped the Ducks in letters to the editor and on talk radio, wailed at their lack of commitment, stomped your feet at their apathy toward the loyal hockey fan.

But like that loyal hockey fan, you kept showing up.

Disney knows a sucker when it sees one.

Once, there existed some sports teams owned by families who considered them public trusts. In exchange for blind loyalty, they felt an obligation to blindly pursue victory.

Today, those families have become rooms full of slick suits, and they all know suckers when they see them.

Remember when some fans were bold enough to suggest that Disney sports boss Tony Tavares be fired for running off Wilson?

Listen to the numbers, and it sounds as if Tavares deserves a healthy raise.

Tavares felt so bad about gutting the Ducks’ foundation with Wilson’s firing, he recently increased ticket prices for the fourth time in five years.

The Ducks were gutsy enough announce that increase on the evening of the Mike Piazza trade.

To watch Ron Wilson during the next two weeks will be to watch the future of Los Angeles sports.

Our other top teams will undoubtedly be making other outlandish moves. And while you will howl, the corporate bosses will chuckle.

They know, and you know, that short of giving up your interest in the sport altogether, there is nothing you can do about it.

While I thought the Mike Piazza trade was a good one, many fans did not. You erupted with an anger that would have made Wilson proud.

You were so mad, you couldn’t wait to get to the ballpark. In the Dodgers’ next five home games after the Piazza trade, attendance averaged 42,695 per night.

The scary part about the Piazza deal is that if Fox will trade its best baseball player during discussions about a TV deal, no telling what it will do next.

If Jerry Buss will allow Jerry West to leave, no telling what he will do next.

If the Angels will sit idly while badly needed free-agent depth drifts through their radar screen, no telling what they won’t do next.

The only consistent scenario is that whatever some of our owners pull, they won’t care what you think about it.

This is because, of all the characters in this farce, we are the only ones guided by the heart.

The Dodgers could field a team of minor leaguers, and 48,000 of us would still show up on a Saturday afternoon in July. The Lakers could be coached by a farm animal, and the Forum will still be shaking by halftime.

They have us by the heart, so they think they have us forever.

It would be an unmitigated pleasure this week see good guy Ron Wilson on top of the sports world, if it wasn’t such a numbing reminder that we are bouncing along the bottom.